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Jokes erupt after Sagarika Ghose spreads allegations of EVMs being hacked via Bluetooth

Hemant Bijapurkar
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Jokes erupt after Sagarika Ghose spreads allegations of EVMs being hacked via Bluetooth

The voting for the 1st phase of Gujarat assembly elections began today and media is already flooded with controversies of EVM malfunctioning. We just reported how Twitter users accused NDTV of spreading panic about malfunctioning EVMs.

This has now been topped by controversial journalist Sagarika Ghose’s reporting, which supposedly sought to spread amusing allegations of EVMs being hacked via Bluetooth:


As per her, a congress leader Arjun Modhwadia had alleged that EVMs in his constituency were picking up Bluetooth signals which could have resulted in possible network hacking. Before going any further, for the sake of it, lets examine the veracity of these allegations.

A few month ago a political party named the Aam Aadmi Party was pioneering high decibel outrage by alleging all forms of EVM tampering. In order to achieve its goal, its supremo Arvind Kejriwal were seen spreading desperate lies to prove EVM tampering.

In order to set the record straight, the Election Commission in April had issued FAQs about the security features in its EVMs [PDF].

The second question in the booklet was, Are the ECI-EVMs Hackable.

After answering it with a quick no. The EC then explained further. This was one paragraph in that answer:

Election commission’s explanation

As seen above, the EC clarified that EVMs are standalone machines and are not connected to networks at any point of time. The EVMs also don’t have any frequency receivers or decoders thus no tampering is possible via mediums like wireless, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. 

So the Election Commission back in April had debunked Bluetooth tampering allegations which the Congress leaders are now possibly ‘inventing’.

Being a senior journalist with such a vast experience covering elections, one would expect Ms. Ghose to be well versed in such basic general knowledge of EVMs. If she indeed wasn’t aware of the facts, maybe she could have surfed the internet to find the truth, like we did.

The opposition leaders are almost expected to make silly allegations but if one considers himself/herself a responsible journalist, then it is expected that a basic fact check is carried out before reporting.

People predictably weren’t letting Ms. Ghose off the hook and decided to pan her by cracking hilarious jokes:


Even rebel AAP leader decided to take potshots:


Now media reports have emerged which signal that the opposition in deliberately indulging in confusion creating tactics, to peddling this wireless hacking narrative:


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Why people on the ‘right’ appear unable to work as a group for a common goal

Anand
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Why people on the ‘right’ appear unable to work as a group for a common goal

Let’s accept it – one thing that all right-leaning thinkers envy about the leftists is their ability to set their individual preferences aside and fight for common goals (the top of which is invariably defeating ‘Hindutva’, or in other words – let them also accept it – ‘defeating’ Hinduism).

A recent twitter thread highlighted this fact while expressing it through humour. Following is the first tweet of that lot, and you can read the entire thread on Twitter by going there:


So why does it happen? Why can’t the ‘right wing’ work together? If you give 10 “rightist” an hour to come up with a basic collective strategy against the left, then don’t be surprised if they spend it all disagreeing on what name they should give themselves before arriving at a strategy.

The cause for this is simple. What we call “right” is basically the default position against the hypocrisy and tyranny of the Left, which is ridiculously apparent to anyone who can think on his/her own. The ‘problem’ with independent thinkers, however, is they guard their independence so much that they can never function in a group.

There is evidence of this in both religious and political domains. Even today Swami Vivekananda continues to captivate people with his breathtaking intellect and call to serve the nation, but the organization he founded to carry out his vision has not even managed to achieve a fraction of what he dreamed a century ago.

A more recent example is of Jayaprakash Narayan and his Loksatta Party, which could never get off the ground despite his visionary leadership. Both leaders drew free thinking people who functioned in splintered groups with no cohesive strategy because they were told to use their own brains. Contrast this with Arvind Kejriwal and Aam Aadmi Party, which took the opposite route (leaning left, dissenters thrown out, promoting group-thinking, etc.) and became far successful than Loksatta.

Leftist ideas seek to entirely restructure a society and this cannot happen until the cohesive forces of its civilizational values are neutralized. Their founding principle is that societies are in a state of conflict that needs to be resolved through economic and political restructuring. That work cannot begin until the resentment between various classes of society grows to the point of anarchy.

Religion with its power to bind people together and provide social stability stands as a major adversary. Religions, especially Indian ones, ask their followers take ownership of what befalls them (karma) while the left wants you to believe that you are suffering because you have been oppressed by others.

Religion gives its followers an ability to transcend their suffering, a trait that simply does not sit well with leftists because they need people to revolt. One can then see why Marx called religion the opium of the people, because that is where ordinary people take shelter when it hurts as opposed to where he would like them to go, i.e. communism.

As long as people are willing to take personal responsibility for their lives, leftist ideas cannot germinate because such people have no intention to take up arms and bring about a revolution.

One can see the knowledge of this fact playing out with the left-wing propaganda machinery, the most notable of them being The Wire. Even though it requires remarkable gall to prop up a political movement that destroyed religious institutions, executed religious leaders, and eventually took millions of lives, The Wire unabashedly pushes the communist ideology on one hand while attacking Hinduism on the other, whether it is at civilizational level or its spiritual leaders.

One example is how Vinod Dua, who has been caught many times spreading lies, attacked Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev. None of the allegations against Sadhguru made by Dua for The Wire have been found with any truth to them. Sadhguru invites anyone to come inside the premise of his ashrama – which Padma Shri Vinod Dua calls a company – and investigate. If found guilty, he promises to leave the country. Sadhguru is a shining example of the glorious Indian tradition of producing men of God. This is probably the first time though that one of them has been forced to offer leaving the nation that has shown the world the way of dharma.

The point I am making is that people on the left know their greatest adversary – the dharma of the Indic people. The importance of dharma in holding back destructive alien ideologies cannot be overstated.

Religions that arose from the Middle East have largely managed to conquer the entire globe, but they did not succeed in India despite having ruled it for a thousand years and putting the natives under tyrannous times. This is not just because we had some warriors defending us. But it was because religion and life were not distinct entities for the people of India. For Indians, giving up their religion meant giving up life itself and not a certain set of beliefs. It was easier to die than to live without dharma, and no conqueror has a sword mighty enough to cut down such a foe.

The independent thinking ‘not left’ people need to understand that they are mere spectators in this civilizational battle unless they back the consolidation of India’s cultural and religious values that has held this society together for millennia and on which remains our only hope of building a nation. This does not have to come at the expense of one’s personal beliefs about religion and neither does this require one to take an adversarial position against others.

Indeed religions that arose from India never did, and their spirit was always of inquiry into truth instead of following the formula for the shortest route to heaven. If those who think of themselves to be on the ‘right’ cannot agree on this one basic goal then they might as well save their energy and put it to good use elsewhere.

Leftist have at their disposal a very well structured and beguiling ideology that preys on people’s discontent and sense of victimhood, something that cannot be defeated by merely appealing to one’s reason and evidence. The greatest threat to our way of life is not so much the aggression of other radicalized religions. Their attack is direct and we have withstood those forces for hundreds of years because we were grounded in our way of life. The real threat is of deracination that uproots us from that grounding. This is what left really wants and the gullible latte-sipping disconnected youth of India easily falls for it.

Swami Vivekananda had given a prescription for the rejuvenation of India in his lecture “The Future of India”, where he claimed that nations can only develop along lines that are natural to them. Spiritual seeking has always been the dominant current of our civilization and has allowed us to last for this long. The fractures within Hinduism must be mended by unifying this common thread by culturally empowering all with our collective spiritual heritage that has been held back from some of us, often locked behind the walls of Sanskrit.

The role of Hindutva organizations in finally putting an end to the culture of privilege in our society is immense because of their great reach but they have to contend with deep rooted historical conditioning within their ranks. We on the right will do well to prod them towards unifying us like Swami Vivekananda wanted. We must realize that the giant that is Sanatan Dharma does not need protection from any threat, it just needs to be woken up.

Twitter users accuse NDTV of spreading panic about malfunctioning EVMs

OpIndia Staff
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Twitter users accuse NDTV of spreading panic about malfunctioning EVMs

The frantic election process of the Gujarat assembly elections notched its first landmark today, with the start of the 1st phase of voting.

The buildup to this election process has been far from normal with the Congress party managing to embroil itself in a toxic cocktail of religion and caste, which might ultimately cost the party dearly.

Many though felt that Saturday would be a welcome break from the electoral controversies, with most people being busy casting their votes. NDTV and its journalist Nidhi Razdan though had other plans.

She in the morning tweeted out that her colleague was reporting about 70 EVMs malfunctioning in Surat, and questioned the Election Commission regarding the same:


Going by her tweet, such a high number of malfunctions in a single city raised questions about Election Commission’s quality checks and level of preparedness.

Soon other media outlets and even AAP members started reporting about the so called glitches:


While this was being played out, Nidhi Razdan came up with a second tweet which created more speculation:


This tweet raised the question that if the number was indeed so low percentage wise then why did Nidhi Razdan jump the gun in questioning the Election Commission. Also what was the exact meaning of the Election Commission’s claim that malfunction was noted just in 7 election booths? Did it mean that all the 70 EVMs were part of these polling booths or whether the number 70 was in any was inordinately high.

Twitter though didn’t wait for such answers, and after possibly considering the past notoriety of Nidhi Razdan and the NDTV when it comes to fake news, decided to slam them:


Things though took another turn when NDTV’s Sonia Singh came up with an explanatory tweet:


Rather than explaining things, this tweet possibly caused further confusion, as it still failed to explain as to how many EVMs were actually faulty as per the election commission. Answering this simple question would mean that the things would become a lot clearer and explain whether NDTV was right or wrong.

Congress leader gets exposed on Twitter for his anti-India tweets

OpIndia Staff
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Congress leader gets exposed on Twitter for his anti-India tweets

Salman Nizami is a Congress leader from Jammu & Kashmir who has a sizeable presence on social media via his almost 63,000 followers. Recently, he was called out on twitter while spreading fake news to target PM Modi’s “chaiwala” background.

As per reports, he was recently asked by the Congress to campaign for the upcoming Gujarat assembly elections with a motive of wooing Muslim voters. Such a responsibility delegated by the party might have signalled a rising role within the organisation, and a possible route to future stardom.

All this might come crashing down, after various journalists and social media users dug up Nizami’s past twitter activities, which brought to the forefront his sinister political ideology.

Journalist Jagrati Shukla took to twitter to share screenshots of Nizami’s past tweets and labelled him as a traitor:


As seen from a couple of the screenshots provided, Nizami an ardent believer in Azad Kashmir, the idea of which seriously undermines the sovereignty of India:

In one of her earlier tweets, Shukla shared disturbing screenshots of Nizami where he is seen glorifying terrorist Afzal Guru:

He is also allegedly seen giving death threats to BJP leaders:

Soon another twitter user named @BigBongTheory dug up some of his similar tweets:

While this exercise was going on, some twitter users even dug up tweets from a handle named @Salman_nizami which had far more radical content:

Even though this handle bore striking resemblance to the verified handle of Nizami, it was unclear whether he was a victim of impersonation or whether it was another account of Nizami. The username of both the accounts varies slightly.

Soon after this expose, Nizami decided to protect his twitter account, thereby possibly preventing users from digging up other embarrassing tweets:


He though later decided to un-protect his twitter account and claimed that he had filed a police complaint against unknown persons who circulated fake and hate tweets from an unverified Twitter handle to smear his reputation.

He in all possibility might be referring to the @Saman_nizami handle but has still failed to explain the anti-India content spewed from his verified account, some of which still continue to be present there:


Things have escalated to such an extent that PM Modi himself has highlighted the nefarious online activities of Nizami:


This isn’t the only time the Congress has had to face embarrassment due to the social media antics of its leaders.

We had reported how a Congress leader named Amaresh Misra was disgraced on social media for his vile and abusive tweets. He was also earlier arrested for posting hateful comments and issuing rape threats on Twitter.

He though was later shockingly mainstreamed by Indian Express, which decided to ‘rehabilitate’ him as a columnist.

What will it take for Congress to be described as an elitist and casteist organization?

Abhishek Banerjee
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What will it take for Congress to be described as an elitist and casteist organization?

So, last evening, I found every Lutyens creature sympathizing whole heartedly with the plight of the Congress party. Why? Because Mani Shankar Aiyar has come out with yet another filthy remark against Modi. And this time it’s too close to Gujarat elections.

I am really searching through Twitter, but I am unable to spot a single instance of a Lutyens journalist or intellectual saying that Aiyar referring to Modi as a “neech” shows the horrendous, casteist mentality of the Congress Party. All I have seen is chest beating over “Why did he have to say it now?”

It’s like calling Modi a “neech” would have been okay as long as it did not happen just before Gujarat elections.

Along with that, there was all round sympathy for Rahul baba, who apparently is being let down by the motormouths in his party. There was not one who could point out that Rahul and Sonia Gandhi run their party like a pack of Pidis and that no Pidi would dare to say something that was not approved by Rahul and Sonia Gandhi.

NDTV - Narendra Modi's 'Caste' Comeback for Priyanka's 'Neech Rajniti' Comment

The Dynasty has long been employing this word to describe Narendra Modi. Sonia Gandhi used it herself.


How much higher could Mani Shankar Aiyar have gone in the Congress Party hierarchy to get clearance for using the word “neech” against Modi?

And just the other day, the Congress Party boasted about the status of Rahul Gandhi as “not just a Hindu, but a janeu-dhari Hindu.”

How much more clear could Congress Party’s casteist mentality be before the so called intellectuals admit it’s more than just a “gaffe”?

Instead, intellectuals last night were busy making excuses, condemning Aiyar not for his casteist mentality, but for expressing it at the wrong time. And when Rahul Gandhi panicked and suspended Aiyar, they spent the rest of the night praising him for taking a stance in favor of civility.

Civility? Why yes of course… Who described the PM as “khoon ka dalal?” May I ask.

Oh… I remember. That doesn’t count. Because the one who said “khoon ka dalal” was Rahul Gandhi version No. 100 from last year and this is Rahul Gandhi version 101. Those remarks came before word went out to Media Pidis that Rahul ji should now be described as a social media superstar.

What will it take for the Congress to be described as a deeply casteist and elitist organization? Their boss boasting about his janeu-dhari status isn’t enough? Sonia ji and Priyanka ji calling Modi a “neech” isn’t enough? The Youth Congress magazine asking Modi to stick to selling tea isn’t enough? Ghulam Nabi Azad referring to Modi as a “Gangu Teli” (Modi comes from the Teli caste) is not enough?

All these abuses hurled over the years are not enough?


Then what is enough?

Nothing will ever be enough. Because in the eyes of intellectual Pidis, the Congress is forever innocent by default. Anytime they say something indefensible, it’s just bad luck for some reason. Or stupidity. Because they can never be evil. Because they can never bite the hand that feeds.

So last night it was apparently all about Mani Shankar Aiyar not understanding Hindi well enough. Never mind that Aiyar is an ex-diplomat who worked for the Indian Foreign Service. Speaking to people in foreign languages, weighing every word carefully so as not to give the wrong impression… that is what Aiyar spent an entire career doing. Today Hindi is so foreign for him that the man has no idea that calling people “neech” is a casteist insult.

On the flip side, every word that comes out of the mouth of anyone in the BJP, no matter how lowly an office bearer, an ordinary cadre or any member of VHP or RSS, or pretty much anybody who wears saffron… is connected to Narendra Modi personally.

When a BJP member says something untoward, it’s always their lowly mentality getting exposed. When a Congressi says something indefensible, it’s always a gaffe.

The other day I was reading the following description of Sharad Yadav’s sexist remarks in Newslaundry.

Newslaundary whitewashing Sharad Yadav's sexism

That’s right. When Sharad Yadav makes disparaging comments on women with short hair, he doesn’t become a sexist jackass. He just becomes someone who is “closely connected to the ground.”

That is why modern liberalism has become so hollow and ineffective. Because every single ideal they claim to stand for has been sold out in service of Rahul and Sonia Gandhi.

Prominent Karnataka magazine editor arrested for giving ‘supari’ to kill fellow journalist

OpIndia Staff
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Prominent Karnataka magazine editor arrested for giving ‘supari’ to kill fellow journalist

Ravi Belagere, a prominent journalist and editor of Kannada weekly named Hai Bangalore has been arrested by the police on charges of giving a supari (illegal contract) to kill his former colleague and fellow journalist Sunil Heggaravanahalli.

The Bangalore police reached his residence in the city’s Padmanabhanagar area on Friday and proceeded to question him in this matter.

His involvement came to the forefront after the Central Crime Branch (CCB) arrested a sharp shooter named Tahir Hussain. He in turn led the investigators to another contract killer named Shashidhar Mundevadigi who hails from the Vijayapura district, which is notorious for illegal gun running and “supari” business.

Shashidhar then seems to have confessed about receiving a Supari from Belagere about three months ago to murder Sunil Heggaravanahalli.

The supposed motive behind this murder is that Heggaravanahalli was having an affair with Belagere’s second wife. This as a result angered Belagere, who hatched the murder plot.

Belagere had in the past too run afoul of the law when he was sentenced to an year in jail by the Karnataka Assembly for writing articles which were allegedly defamatory to state legislators. A fine of Rs 10,000 was also imposed against him, which failing to pay would have meant a 6 months extension to his sentence. He though got a relief when the Karnataka High Court put a stay on his punishment.

Such an action against Belagere was  supposedly brought on after two MLAs complained to the privilege committee against his articles. This resulted in a breach of privilege resolution being passed in the Karnataka assembly, which enabled these punishments.

The state legislatures and the Parliament are provided such powers to punish individuals via sections 194 and sections 195 respectively of the Indian Constitution.

Indian Navy promptly denies Shashi Tharoor’s allegations about it not picking up bodies of Ockhi victims

OpIndia Staff
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Indian Navy promptly denies Shashi Tharoor’s allegations about it not picking up bodies of Ockhi victims

The cyclone Ockhi from about 29th November to 6th December wrecked devastating havoc along the coastal areas bordering the Arabian sea.

In India the total death toll has been pegged at 36, with at-least 96 fishermen still expected missing. This uncertainty has resulted in 44 fishermen communities staging massive protests against the Tamil Nadu government for failing to save the fishermen who were in the sea when cyclone struck.

In order to rescue those affected, the Indian Navy launched a major rescue operation called Op Sahayam:


Via this operation, the Navy had launched a Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster relief program involving nine Naval ships and four types of aircraft namely P8I, Dornier, SeaKing and Chetak.

One of the states majorly affected by this tragedy is Kerala. The Chief Minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday decided to politicise this grave matter by alleging discrimination by the Modi government in the aftermath of this cyclone.

Today, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, who is an MP from Thiruvananthapuram decided to visit the affected fishing villages and later took to twitter to share his experience.

As per him, after the interaction he spoke to Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman to inform her about the reported anger among the fishing communities about the Navy not picking up dead bodies due to lack of on board freezer:


This was a serious charge as if the Navy was failing to bring back dead bodies, it was a major shortcoming in the whole rescue operation.

Barely about an hour after Tharoor’s tweet, the spokesperson of the Indian navy replied to his tweet. Here the Navy denied the charge of them ever refusing to pick up bodies and stated that they would continue to bring bodies ashore:


The spokesperson also tagged various twitter handles including that of Nirmala Sitharaman, PMO India and Indian Army, to convey their response in this matter.

Tharoor too later responded back by claiming that he was merely reporting what the residents of Pozhiyoor village had told him:


One hopes that this episode results in a thorough investigation of the matter so that such confusion doesn’t happen in the future.

China backs ‘virtual youth icons’ as real youth icons take drugs and do sex scandals

OpIndia Staff
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China backs ‘virtual youth icons’ as real youth icons take drugs and do sex scandals

China, which is known to exercise strict controls over the way its citizens behave and even think, has now taken this desire to control thoughts and deeds to the next level by using “virtual youth icons” to “to instill correct thinking into the younger generation”.

One of these virtual youth icons is Luo Tianyi – a holographic figure that sings – who is all set to become an ambassador to promote Chinese culture and Made in China products to young people, state run media Global Times reported on Thursday.

Luo Tianyi is supposed to be a young girl who performs as a singer in stadiums and concerts. A concert by her in June this year in Shanghai was reportedly attended by thousands of young fans. 90% of her songs are written by her fans, and selected songs are added in the official catalogue, later to be performed in public. State media said that fans expect more and more ‘red songs’ from her.

virtual singer and her fans
Chinese youth being floored by songs of Luo (pic: Global Times)

Luo could be having a fan base of millions, the state media claims, and this popularity has won her attention from the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC) – which is the youth wing of the Communist party of China – and other governmental organisations

CYLC has reportedly ‘recruited’ Luo to become their ‘youth ambassador’ and many governmental organisations has used her as ‘spokesperson’ to ‘promote positive values to the youth’.

“They (virtual idols) are easier to manage, different from real-life stars who make their own decisions and do things the way they like, which is hard to control. Virtual idols can be modeled the way you want them to be. They only show what you instill in them,” the developer of such ‘virtual youth icons’ was reported as saying by the state media, hinting why the communist party is promoting them.

“Indeed, virtual icons like Luo Tianyi could cause zero harm to youngsters as they won’t yield to any temptation like drugs or get involved in any sex scandals. In recent years, a number of popular human celebrities were found to be drug users or sex addicts. It’s also not uncommon to find stars falling from the public’s worshiping altar after making an ethnical mistake,” the state media approvingly commented about CYLC’s support for such virtual youth icons.

While these virtual youth icons have impressed the Communist party, there are some voices that believe that use of such technology and fandom is a ‘sign of not loving China’, for this type of idol/anime subculture originated in Japan.

Rajasthan ‘love jihad’ murder – arrested accused not part of any organisation, says police

OpIndia Staff
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Rajasthan ‘love jihad’ murder – arrested accused not part of any organisation, says police

In a shocking murder case, a man named Shambhunath Raigar was seen surpassing all forms of barbarity after he attacked a labourer from West Bengal named Afrazul and later burnt him alive. This gruesome deed which took place in Rajasthan’s Rajsamand district was shockingly recorded by the accused’s 14 years old nephew.

The accused Shambhunath, later circulated the video on social media and claimed that he did so to take revenge for his sister, who allegedly was a victim of love jihad.

The Rajasthan police on Thursday arrested the accused and has since then charged him for murder. As per the police, other relevant sections would be added against Shambhunath based on developments during the ongoing investigation.

The DGP, Om Prakash Galhotra has stated that they would demand capital punishment for the accused. The minor nephew who allegedly recorded the incident too would be prosecuted under relevant sections of the Juvenile act.

DGP Galhotra was quoted by the media as saying that this murder was the handiwork of a crazy person, thereby indicating the possible mental instability of the accused. He also claimed that a girl seen in the video the accused had uploaded was differently-abled. She supposedly was with the accused while he was arrested.

The accused Shambhunath though has not shown any signs of repentance and as per reports has claimed during intense interrogation that he didn’t think he committed a crime. The report also claimed that Shambhunath has alleged that the victim had threatened to kill his family.

Another question which emerged after the incident was that whether Shambhunath was part of an radical group or organisation which could have indicated a collective action of sorts. The police though has rejected this angle. Inspector General Anand Shrivastav said that the accused was not part of any organisation which carried out the murder.

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